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Nebulous

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And so in conclusion there is only one thing of which we can be absolutely certain: the spaceship was already blowing up when I got there.

Imagine Doctor Who starring an underfunded Obstructive Bureaucrat, and you have Nebulous: a BBC Radio 4 After the End comedy series which parodies much of British Science Fiction, in particular Quatermass and the aforementioned Doctor Who. Nebulous follows the adventures of Professor Nebulous, leader of K.E.N.T.: the Key Environmental Non-judgemental Taskforce, which just happens to be based in a London launderette. K.E.N.T. is tasked with picking up the pieces after an environmental disaster known as "The Withering": a Cosy Catastrophe that has led to the extinction of vegetarians, tarts and white dog-doings. The series exists almost solely to subvertSpeculative Fiction Tropes, and many episodes are Affectionate Parodies of other shows.

Brown Note - the colour "Garrow" causes all who look at it to go crazy.

Butt-Monkey: Although Professor Nebulous has prevented potential invasions and neutralized major threats (accidentally or intentionally), elsewhere, he can't catch a break. No one will ever forget his destruction of the Isle of Wight, and he is constantly reminded that he will NEVER live it down. This is why his fortunes are often extremely low, he's frequently obstructed from attaining better resources, and his department is given a shoestring (no, aglet) budget.

When Professor Nebulous encounters an alternate dimension version of himself, he discovers that the alternate Professor had also destroyed the Isle of Wight, but he became phenomenally popular and esteemed because of it. That has to be a blow to the ego.

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Sir Ronald Rowland: "I'd like to do what I can, but I'm afraid I can't."

Rory: "Bollocks ... Sir."

Nebulous: "I'm drifting."

General catch phrase: "K.E.N.T. can do."

Harry: "UNLIKE YOU, PROFESSOR, I NO LONGER HAVE THE LUXURY OF A [body part]."

Chaste Hero - Nebulous remains oblivious to his assistant Paula's obvious and blatant attraction to him

In fact she is somewhat beyond blatant, frequently disrobing, placing his hand on her and molesting him while unconscious.

Casanova Wannabe - Rory claims to be the team's ladies' man. There is absolutely no evidence for this.

Chalk Outline - Paula attempts to draw one, makes one of the legs too long, and 'just makes the other one longer to match'.

Covert Group with Mundane Front: K.E.N.T.'s cover is that they're a laundry. Much to Professor Nebulous's annoyance, their sponsors in the Government seem more inclined to buy equipment for the laundry than for eco-troubleshooting operations.

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Creator Provincialism - Parodied, when one of the villains claims that there are so many alien invasions of the UK "for tax reasons".

Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Oh, Harry. One especially clear moment is when he goes into the future to a time when there are no humans, just body parts with mouths. They are all very happy with their situations, but consider him the most perfect human being they have ever seen, and they even worship him. Harry is completely unable to deal with this and when he returns to the present informs Paula that the lesson he learned was that 'the secret to true happiness is having a completely perfect body'.

Evil Cripple: Harry is a played with variation in that he's not particularly evil - he does betray Nebulous to try and cook the world with a miniature sun at one point, but is really just bitter and annoying.

Expy: The Worserons at the end of "The Lovely Invasion" are described as 'an amphibious race that used to walk the Earth at the time of the dinosaurs, roused from centuries of hibernation by mining work in East Anglia', a description extremely similar to that of the Silurians in Doctor Who.

For Science! - Nebulous has shown a lack of foresight regarding some of his inventions.

Nebulous: You're looking at the man who invented basers, as a recycling tool for cutting up scrap metal. The baser: a hyper-caustic acid beam housed in a handy gun shaped dispenser. How could I have possibly known that the military would turn it into a weapon?

Fun with Acronyms - K.E.N.T.'s biggest rival is L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H. - the Legitimate Organisation Undertaking General Humanitarian Business Operations Requiring Optimum Unconditional Global Harmony. Apparently, people from K.E.N.T. have always hated people from L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H..

For our non-british readers: L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H is supposed to be said 'Luffburrah' the same as the English town of the same name. Paula thinks you say it as it's written - Loogahboroogah.

Future Food Is Artificial - parodied, as no-one has any issues with cannibalism, but the idea of eating soya-based Soylent Beige makes people retch in horror.

A colony of rogue vegetarians is treated with absolute scorn by the main cast:

Rory: Why wouldn't you eat meat ? Meat's lovely.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - The Withering means that the Empire of Luxembourg is now a superpower, while The Midlands is now an exotic sounding old name for The Withered Zone.

It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY" - Professor Diplodocus. Everyone calls him "Di-PLOD-o-cus." He insists that it's "DI-plo-DOK-us". After this correction, K.E.N.T. struggle to pronounce his name right, Nebulous usually flubbing it slightly whenever he says it and Paula calling him things like "Professor Triceratops".

Just Between You and Me - Wonderfully parodied in the final episode of Season 1, where Nebulous is held at gunpoint by his arch-nemesis.

Nebulous: Surely you're going to outline your brilliant plan?

Dr. Klench: Why should I? The information's no use to you.

Nebulous: To...satisfy my curiosity?

Dr. Klench: It's irrelevant. Any minute now you're going to be a dead body.

Missing Episode (in universe) - Parodied in the liner notes for the first series, which claims that there were at least 11 series of Nebulous, but almost all the episodes were lost. Many of the examples given are spoofs of famous Doctor Who episodes - many of which are themselves missing.

Nebulous: These people have had their brains washed, rinsed, conditioned, and then put through some kind of mangle, then ironed, and folded, and then put in some kind of airing cupboard: an airing cupboard of the mind, I'm drifting.

Because both his parents were clowns, and being clowns was the family business. He bucked the trend by becoming an underpaid scientist.

My Greatest Failure - Nebulous blew up the Isle of Wight while trying to move it to the left a bit. It ruined his career, his subsequent attempt to avert the disaster failed, and nobody lets him forget it.

No Endor Holocaust - spoofed in "The Deptford Wives" when Nebulous decides to blow up the whole island with a nuclear device, killing Professor Diplodocus to save the world. Paula and Rory dedicate the final scene to casually speculating that the infrastructure of the island meant it must have had at least five hundred innocent employees who were just doing their jobs who surely also must have been killed, to which Nebulous insists that it was only the professor and there was minimal loss of life.

No Indoor Voice - Harry is fitted with a voice synthesiser which is constantly too loud, even on its quietest setting.

Parody Episode - many episodes are fairly close parodies of classic sci-fi series.

Perky Female Minion - The aptly-named Paula Breeze, who takes perkiness to the point of mental illness.

Harry has a robotic voice synthesiser that he constantly has turned up far too loud (while the electronic treatment is different, the line delivery is reminiscent of the Daleks from Doctor Who). Everyone around him finds this extremely irritating but feels bad complaining due to his extensive disabilities that force him to use an artificial voice in the first place.

Dr Clench in "The Man Who Polished The Sun" has a Robot Me "mandroid" plant in a maximum security prism. He speaks with an obvious electronic effect on his voice but everyone is fooled by it.

While The Doctor is known as "The Oncoming Storm", Nebulous is merely "The Oncoming Drizzle".

"The Buzzing" has an insect revolution-fixated Mad Scientist named Taron who has a delusional belief that he is somehow an insect (referencing Taren, a robot revolution-fixated Mad Scientist from the Doctor Who story "The Robots of Death" who has a delusional belief that he is somehow a robot). The same episode offhandedly mentions the head of the UN having the first name "Mavic" (referencing President EvilWho villain Mavic Chen from "The Daleks' Master Plan").

Nebulous has a 'sonic crowbar'. He uses it exclusively as a blunt instrument.

Sick Episode - Third series episode "Us and Phlegm". Rory, Paula, Harry and ninety-nine percent of the nation's workforce come down with every serious illness in the world, one after another. Eventually Nebulous discovers that aliens were behind it.

Take Our Word for It: Due to audio drama being what it is, the hints of what exactly the hideously mutilated Harry must look like and which parts of his body may still exist get more and more outrageous.

Over the course of the series, Harry has stated that he has lost his chin, mouth, nose, eyes (with his optical scanners apparently processing the information and presenting it as a pie chart for some reason), hands (he initially claimed to retain one but more recently stated that he only has a mechanical grabber), feelings, toes (all ten, which he now keeps in a jar), both legs, upper lip (although he retains the lower one), heart, fingers, nerves, head (Although Nebulous notes that Harry retains most of his head), brain (replaced with a chip that apparently causes him headaches), back (although he does have a hunch), arse (he mentioned that he has rented one from an unidentified source), spleen, heart, eyeteeth and normal teeth; the only thing he definitely still has is an inner ear that is now an outer ear on his neck.

"Destiny of the Destinoyd" combines Doctor Who stories "The Moonbase" (a multinational team of people stuck on a moonbase full of dangerous equipment) and "Image of the Fendahl" (a ghost Eldritch Abomination that makes people commit suicide).

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